Create a Cycle of Small Adjustments & Innovations
Managing the summer heat has taught me that small adjustments can lead to small innovations and, I hope, to a cycle of more adjustments and more innovation.
Photo by Francesca Tosolini on Unsplash
It’s the middle of summer, in the Northern Hemisphere at least & hot almost everywhere in the Hemisphere. Whether or not they join the hordes in airports and security lines, people are taking vacations and slowing down in the heat.
For the last week, it’s been too hot to work much at one stretch. The temperature has hit record numbers and isn’t going down more than 10 degrees at night. The humidity is high too. We haven’t had any rain for at least a couple of weeks. My Wissahickon stone twin holds on to the heat and doesn’t let it go during the night. There’s no breeze, no cooler air to flow through the house to cool it off after the sun sets. I’m not complaining. Interestingly, the heat & humidity don’t bother me as much as they used to.
The heat reminds me again of small innovations.
I think about small changes I can make in my daily work routines. What tasks must I get done in the morning before the sun makes the house so hot? Can I get in some time on the porch before the sun makes that activity too hot? Which nearby cafe with good air conditioning and coffee where I can get a longer task done? I move some of my work time to the evening when the sun starts to recede and the house is slightly cooler & am surprised that I get a lot done then.
Small innovations.
These adjustments and innovations, if you will, remind me that I am adaptable. That I can accomplish work tasks in different sized time chunks, at different times than I’m used to. I discover that I can be very productive after 3pm — busting my own assumption that my best work gets done in the morning.
I will adjust again when fall comes and again when winter arrives and it’s the cold I adjust to. I’ll swap out the window air conditioners for space heaters. In the summer, the top floor is the hottest; in the winter it’s the coldest. I don’t have to just drop all the changes I made to my routines because it’s not 97 degrees Fahrenheit. No, I’ll keep those changes as innovations to my routines, my life. And, those innovations will trigger other change and innovation.
What small innovations is your software company or financial institution working on?
I have thoughts and ideas about small innovations:
Me, Elsewhere
I moderated a great panel of folks for a conversation on innovation. We cut through the hype and share practical advice for making your digital transformation efforts pay off. We definitely talked about the importance of small innovations.
How can banks be truly low friction? They must address friction everywhere. Otherwise innovation & digital transformation will elude them. In this report I identified the characteristic of a low friction bank and why legacy core banking and architectures don’t support it.
What can the Kardashians teach your financial institution about partnerships and innovation? How can working with empathic fintechs help you identify niche groups (aka hidden tribes) and innovate. All this and more in this this ebook that you can download at Praxent or Nymbus.
Adopt an Agile Digital Banking Platform: How bankers must have an agile digital banking platform to support both global and local trends and requirements to help them identify new niche markets that will drive innovation, create new value and increase profitability. In this report I identified a set of capabilities that a digital banking platform must have that will help take banks into a competitive future and urges banks to select a digital banking partner who shares their innovation, vision and support for new value creation.
How Your Financial Institution Can Leverage Niche Markets for Next-Level Growth: The old rules that influenced how mid-sized financial institutions acquired technology and the tradeoffs they had to make no longer apply. Why? Because new thinking on old models brings new ways for banks and credit unions to deliver new products and services to new niche customer markets. I moderated a vibrant discussion about this & more with Jeffery Kendall, Chairman and CEO, Nymbus and Tim Hamilton, CEO of Praxent.
Think like a Challenger: How banks and credit unions can compete and win - I recently moderated this conversation on challenger banks with Bryan Clagett of Moven and Ted Brown of Digital Onboarding.
Digital banking transformation’s surprising secret for success in Entersekt’s ebook New Directions in Authentication
Does It Fit Me? Tailored Banking - The Next Step in Digital Transformation.
Yes, I worked with clients on these ebooks and webinars. They may ask you for information before you can download or watch them. If you’re interested in collaborating with me on a similar project or something else completely different, please contact me at stessa@pivotassets.co or via LinkedIn.
Who writes PivotAssets?
I’m an independent analyst & consultant & a former Gartner analyst. I’ve worked in and covered the banking industry for over 2 decades. I write about digital banking in this newsletter - not to confirm what you know (and you are plenty smart!) but to give you a fresh perspective & analysis on the transformation that is —and isn’t happening - in the industry.
This newsletter is for people and companies who are trying to differentiate their banking software in an increasingly competitive market. It’s also for bankers and investors who want to know more about digital banking transformation strategies & the technologies that power them.